Practitioner pattern · Vahe Baghdasaryan (Sells paywall optimization services (Tangent); all paywalls shown are built on Superwall)
When a purchase is cancelled, offer a discount on the annual plan only
Weekly or monthly discounts failed in dozens of tests
What they did
What happened
In their words
Vahe Baghdasaryan - Our No-Code Apps Made $50M Using THIS Paywall
Joseph ChoiSo could you show what is transaction abandonment and how do you optimize that?
Vahe BaghdasaryanMhm. Here, you see this paywall on the left side, which is your main paywall. We have two options, like yearly and monthly. Transaction abandonment happens when user clicks on this continue button to buy to try to buy the product, then they cancel out the transaction confirmation dialogue, and they don't buy it. What you do immediately after that, you hit them with another offer, which you can see on the right side. This is a discounted offer. This discounted offer usually should only have like uh annual. You should discount only an annual product. Don't discount weekly, don't discount monthly. It doesn't work. We tested like a dozens of time. It doesn't work. Have annual discounted.
Vahe Baghdasaryan… free trial, make the price more expensive. If they buy without a trial, make it a bit cheaper. For example, if they were to buy with a trial, make the discount offer like 80%, and if they were to buy without a trial, make the offer 90%, just to incentivize some users to go without trial and get direct purchases. From my experience, like around 10% of users, they will choose to buy without a trial, and they would get some direct purchases there.
Vahe BaghdasaryanAnother option to maximize the impact of this of the transaction abandonment paywalls that we don't have it here, but it would be to add another product below yearly plan, which is monthly or weekly, and you don't discount it, never discount it. Just to have it there as a secondary or third option for users who don't want to go with any of this discounted annual choices. Just leave it there. Very tiny percentage of users might choose to go there, but that would also influence on their decision to buy annual, because when they compare the price of the the monthly or weekly to this annual price, they'll see, "Oh, annual is a great deal. Let's go with annual." And that might influence your decision to buy the discounted product.
Joseph ChoiInteresting. So on the original paywall, you said so right now, without the toggle on, it's you're saving 30% off of the monthly plan by doing the yearly. But then if you offer a free trial, what would the discount be in that case?
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More from this episode
- Say 'free' 5-7 times across a 3-screen paywall before showing the price34% trial start rate; multi-step paywalls lift conversion 20-40% vs one screen
- Call the trial plan 'Try it free' instead of 'Annual', showing the price belowUp to ~10% more abandoned purchases, but a net gain if trial-to-paid is above 30%
- Drop the free trial once trial starts and trial-to-paid are both strongMore revenue without the trial, guest says; no numbers given
- Show a spin wheel that lands on 80% off instead of just showing the discountDouble-digit conversion lift vs a plain discount screen in an A/B test
- Let users skip the free trial for a lower price: $6.99 vs $9.99 a week
- Let users turn the free trial off, at the same price, for high-intent appsSome users buy right away, guest says; no numbers
- Show no prices on the 3-page paywall until users tap 'Start my journey today'The biggest win on this paywall, guest says; no numbers
- On the abandoned-purchase offer, give 80% off with a trial or 90% off without~10% of buyers skip the trial and pay right away
- Fix paywalls for five months while installs stay flat, with no ad spendInstall-to-paid rose from 1.1% to ~4% in five months
- Add paywalls at app open, after scans, and on cancel before testing designsGuest's first step for every new client; no numbers
- Borrow discount and urgency tricks from Temu and Shein for paywall testsSource of the spin wheel and 'limited spots' ideas; guest says it works
Tags: transaction-abandonment, discount-offer, annual-only, price-anchoring